The present invention relates to a device for attaching a tow rope to a water craft, and more particularly for attaching such a tow rope to a power boat for towing water skiers and the like.
In recent years water skiing has become a particularly popular sport and typically skiers are towed by attaching a tow rope to a so-called bow-eye typically found on the stern of the boat and used for removing the craft from the water by hoist as well as for mooring purposes. Such attachment points are low and near the water line and become even lower when the high powered boats are in a planing attitude. Desirably the direction of pull for the skiers should be somewhat upwardly relative to the water line and one known attempt to provide a high rope attachment point has been to employ a large horizontal bar supported by a pair of vertical members extending upwardly from a mounting arrangement built into the floor and frame of the craft, thus taking up valuable floor space and obstructing rearward vision. An installation of this type of course requires a different mounting arrangement for different makes and models.
Improved tow rope attachment schemes are found in my copending United States patent application Ser. No. 434,854 filed Jan. 21, 1974 now U.S. Pat. No. 3,890,918, which provide a desirable tow rope attachment point for inboard or inboard-outboard power boats but which may experience mounting difficulties on some types of outboard power boats since the motor may interfere with a central mounting of the ski bar requiring that it be mounted in an offset manner which again may lead to problems, for example, when a skier is offset from the towing craft in the opposite direction. Other attempts to provide a ski-tow hitch applicable to outboard craft are represented by U.S. Pat. No. Des. 187,057 issued Jan. 12, 1960 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,084,470 issued May 15, 1962. These further prior art approaches are severely limited in their applicability to a wide variety of differently configured boats and are commercially available in various sizes to make up for their lack of universal applicability.
It is, therefore, one object of the present invention to provide a tow rope attachment accessory of nearly universal applicability.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a relatively high easy release tow rope attachment point.
A further object of the present invention is to provide an adjustable ski hitch accommodating a wide variety of outboard motors and boats.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a tow rope attachment accessory which avoids floor mounting problems yet provides the desirably high point of pull for water skiers.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide an adjustable ski hitch characterized by its economies of manufacture and installation.